Reasons Being
by Aki4
Summary: Sometimes the reason you go isn't to get there. Warning: The monkey thinks. Scary stuff. (Revised.)


BLAH!! XD X-parrot, you were so right, and I just went and fixed one line so that now Goku sits behind Hakkai.  
  
i warn you, this is not going to be very good. it is strictly written because i don't have time for another chapter of TG but am sick and tired of packing. also, to celebrate my first fic EVER with 50+ reviews!! woohoo!! =) i know, sf has told me that reviews are not a measure of a story's quality (and this i have observed to be true), but i still like to get them. *grin*  
  
~*~*~  
  
He knew why they were going West. It was because Sanzo had gone beyond the heavy brass doors, the doors that were polished and studded and clanged softly like huge distant bells when they closed together. When he'd come out he'd been in a terrible mood and would hit Goku for the least littlest thing, for nothing at all. Then he'd told him to pack his things, the important things, and never mind the food, we're going somewhere.  
  
Where? he'd asked.  
  
West.  
  
The sky seemed higher in the fall, the blue arching upwards into infinity, not the flat bright sky of summer, when it seemed that he could climb a tree and probably catch a cloud. The road was narrow and wound around, past, through the fields. If he didn't look to where the earth tipped up he could pretend they went on forever. He loved to look at them, sun- colored and rippling in the breeze.  
  
It was rich land, valley land, Hakkai said, where the hills blocked off harsh winds and lost a little of their skin to the floor below every year. Where the grain grew tall, each stretch of the road existed for only the four of them and it was always a shock to see someone coming along, eyes widening as Hakkai waved at him cheerfully and Gojyo made faces and Sanzo pretended not to be in Jeep at all.  
  
The morning was quiet, the kind of quiet that grew into peace if it lasted long enough, even though it never did. He tipped his head back and marveled at the width of the sky. Even with the hills reaching up all around him, it was still bigger than he expected. It always was. Probably it always would be. He hoped so, anyway. He breathed, a little too deeply, and felt himself grow light-headed.  
  
In the front seat Hakkai hummed something cheerful and too vague to be a folksong. The sound rose and dispersed like the smoke they left behind them in faint lazy trails. He couldn't smell it, but knew without looking that Gojyo had a Hi-Lite in his mouth. The left arm, cigarette-less, was hanging down outside the door. Sometimes his head lolled against the hard, narrow back of the seat, and sometimes his eyes studied the edges of Hakkai's profile.  
  
That was the way it went when it was quiet. Hakkai looked at the road and Gojyo looked at Hakkai and he looked at the sky and wondered what Sanzo was looking at. Wondered if Sanzo saw what he was looking at because he couldn't see the monk's eyes, not when Sanzo folded his arms and had his face turned off to the side like that.  
  
He wondered why the other two were going. Sanzo was a Sanzo and had to go because They'd told him to. And he would have gone anyway, even if They hadn't, because he needed to find his master's sutras, and he wasn't supposed to need anything. Once he'd found them, probably he'd be in a better mood, and not go around getting so mad at people all the time. Probably. But They also said that Hakkai had to go with them.  
  
It had something to do with Jeep, he decided. They needed Jeep to get West and someone to drive it. Hakkai was a good driver and he read maps. No one else read them because Sanzo just looked at the sky and found where West was and pointed, and Gojyo just guessed where they were going and said he knew, and maps made him dizzy when he looked at them while Jeep was bumping along.  
  
And if Hakkai was going then Gojyo was sure coming along because Hakkai said Gojyo needed someone to look after him. Gojyo said he came for the free food and beer, and maybe he did, even though he complained about the beer at every inn. He didn't want to share his food and Sanzo didn't like to share his beer but probably he would want Gojyo to come along anyway, even if it meant he never got the bed to himself. Because if Gojyo weren't there then who would make Hakkai smile? The real smile, not the one he used to hide his eyes.  
  
Though even that one was ok, was better than Hakkai with no smile. Because when he didn't smile you could see his eyes, and there was something in them that was cold and ugly and turned inside. When it rained hard, water slashing down from the sky, they were like flat pools where someone had drowned, long ago. Sometimes it came to him that if Hakkai cried more, those pools would overflow and let the body out.  
  
But Hakkai never cried. Maybe he'd used up all his tears already. He thought he'd known what that felt like three years ago, although it seemed more like three hundred. Or maybe he didn't know how. He had a new name and a new life, Sanzo said. Maybe he had to learn everything over again. Maybe in the West Hakkai would learn how to cry.  
  
Gojyo had other reasons for going West, though. He wanted to find his brother, had said as much when they'd met Shunrei. Or rather, Hakkai had said it for him. Was that what it meant to take care of Gojyo, to say the things that he would have left unsaid?  
  
It was funny to think of Gojyo with a brother. It was funny to think of Gojyo being a little kid, because kids didn't booze or smoke gamble or flirt and what would Gojyo do, if he didn't do that? He searched his mind for the things that made up Gojyo and didn't involve beer or cigarettes or women. Or Hakkai. Had he made that crooked smile when it hurt? Back then, had his brother said the things he wouldn't say?  
  
He wondered what brothers were like. It was no good to ask Hakkai. He only had a sister and she was dead. You didn't ask about dead people unless the person told you first, because it made them come back as ghosts. An old lady had told him that. Sanzo said she was right, at least some of the time, and that he should keep his mouth shut just in case. Sanzo didn't have brothers or sisters, not even dead ones. It was funny, but Sanzo didn't seem to have anyone, except maybe him, and he wasn't sure if he counted.  
  
Overhead a flight of geese were cutting across the sky. He followed them with his eyes, wishing he could fly, wondering where they were going and if it was more beautiful than where they were now. As he watched, one fell back silently, bending in the oddly perfect shape, while another moved into the lead. Geese took turns being the head of the flock, Hakkai had told him, so that each one could lend his strength while the others rested. He wondered if they knew why they were going South, and if any of them were brothers.  
  
He knew why they were going West, he was sure. It was just that on days like this, it was hard to remember. But he was sure he would figure it out, on the way. 


End file.
